Ecological Testing

Fauna and benthic organisms that live in soil or sediment may be impacted by contaminated matrices. Sediment can cause a long-term exposure from chemicals that may have more effect on these organisms than overlying surface water. Risk to ecological receptors can be assessed by using data generated from ecological assays. This information can be used to reduce the amount of soil or sediment removed from a site that may cause significant risk to the environment. The net result is a reduction of remediation costs.

New England Bioassay offers a suite of toxicity assays that can aid the ecological risk assessor in making sound decisions in the ecological risk characterization process. These tools can provide addtional information to aid in the weight-of-evidence approach to ecological risk assessment.

The toxicity of contaminated soils has become a major focus in ecological risk assessment. Soil toxicity tests can be used to set generic or site-specific soil quality guidelines and for guiding on-...